Chasing the New Girl - (Complete)

Chapter 5 - Meeting Blaze

"Everyone's been talking about me?" Jolie asked.

She had seen all the stares and whispers and guessed they were talking about her, but hearing it confirmed made her stomach tighten into a knot. She hated being the center of everyone's attention. Some people loved the spotlight, but she wasn't one of them.

"Yeah, you're like the shiny new play thing around here,"  Blaze smirked. 

She rolled her eyes at that comment.

"My name is ......," he started to say.

She cut in and finished his sentence for him. "Blaze McDaniels. I already know."

He let out an amused laugh. "I guess you're not the only one getting talked about. Hopefully you've heard only good things about me," he said with a hint of sarcasm.

She didn't even answer that. She just gave him a knowing smile.

"So I saw you walking with the jockstrap earlier. Is he your boyfriend?"

"By jockstrap, I'm guessing you mean Austin. No, he's just my next door neighbor."

"That's not what I heard," Blaze said, sounding skeptical.

"I think I would know if he was my boyfriend," she laughed, shaking her head with a smile. "It's not like that. He's just been showing me around the school to help me get settled in. I literally just met him a couple days ago."

"So who's your boyfriend then?"

She looked over into his brooding dark brown eyes and wondered why he wanted to know. She hesitated before finally saying, "I don't have one."

"You're single? That won't last long," he said so confidently that it made her face flush and she looked back down at her notes, clearing her throat and trying not to look at him.

She tried to focus on what the teacher was saying, but it was really hard. Eventually she looked down at her smart watch and noticed there was only five minutes left until class was over.

"Blaze," she whispered and he sat up and blinked, waking up from the zombie-like state he was in. Obviously he had been zoning out. Apparently what the teacher was saying didn't interest him one bit.

"What?" he asked, turning to look at her, blinking his eyes and trying to focus.

"Could you help me find my next class? I would ask Austin, but he's in a class right now that's at the other end of the school. I figured it would be easier for you to just show me since you're already here," she said, pulling her schedule out of her backpack.

He looked over and studied her face for a few seconds as a smile slowly formed.

"I will .......... but only if you give me a kiss," he whispered with a mischievous smirk, glancing down at her lips.

Her mouth dropped open in shock and she smacked his arm, saying, "Blaze!" shaking her head with a laugh. She couldn't believe he really just asked her to kiss him, right here, in a classroom full of people? Was he crazy?

"Never mind. I'll just ask someone else," she laughed, folding up her schedule and avoiding looking at him.

There's no way she was going to be forced into having her first kiss just to find a class. She looked around the room before tapping on the shoulder of the girl sitting in front of her. 

She turned around and looked at Jolie through her black-rimmed glasses, brushing her long red bangs out of her eyes.

"Yes?"

"Hi, ummm. I'm new and I was wondering if you could help me find my next class? I would owe you big time," she pleaded.

"Sure," the girl smiled. "I can do that, but you don't owe me anything. I'm Bailey by the way," she told her, holding her hand out.